HomeMy WebLinkAboutarea-zFORM A - AREA
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
294 Washington Street, Boston, MA. 02108
Form numbers in this area j Area letter
Z
Lexington
)f area (if any) old Shade Street
:1 date or period seventeenth-
ieth century
Sketch map. Draw a general map of the area indicating properties within it.
Number each property for which individual inventory forms have been completed.
Label streets (including route numbers, if any) and indicate north. (Attach a
separate sheet if space here is not sufficient)
--�
Cel y Nancy S. Seasholes
Organization Lexington Historical Commissio
Date February, 1984
(Staple additional sheets here)
ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE of area.(Describe physical setting, general character,
and architecturally significant structures).
Part of the main road from Lincoln and Lexington to Boston in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most of Old Shade Street is now either
blocked by felled trees, reduced to a path, or obliterated. The section closest
to Spring Street, north of Route 2, however, is still clearly a road bordered by
stone walls, just as it was historically. A major difference, however, is that
today the terrain through which the road passes is wooded, whereas in the past
it was probably open farmland. The section that remains south of Route 2 is
still a maintained street serving four houses. It forms the west boundary of
the lot on which the Cutler farmhouse stands (see 503 Concord Avenue form) just
as it did historically when it was known as Cutler's Lane.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE of area. (Explain development of area, what caused it,
and how it affected community; be specific).
Old Shade Street is part of a road ordered laid out in 1660 between the
southwestern part of Lexington and the Watertown (now Waltham) line, a reflection
of the fact that in the seventeenth century southwestern Lexington was the most
populous part of the town and most of its inhabitants came from Watertown. This
road followed a route comprised of Old Shade Street, Cutler's Lane (now the part
of Old Shade Street south of Route 2), an "old road" approximately on the route
of present Concord Avenue, a no longer existing driveway at the corner of Concord
Avenue and Waltham Street, Ricci's Lane (see Ricci's Lane area form), and Bow
Street in Waltham. The Old Shade Street end connected with the town of Lincoln
via Shade Street, Weston Street, Lincoln Street, and Mill Street, and altogether
this road system served as a major route to Boston during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, a period when the best routes to Boston were via Waltham
rather than Cambridge. In the nineteenth century new bridges were built from
Cambridge to Boston, making the preferred routes from Lexington those through
Cambridge, and Old Shade Street thus became less important as a major thoroughfare.
It remained in use as a town road, however, and continued to be used as a street
well into the twentieth century, even after the southeastern end was cut off in
the mid 1930s when the original Route 2 was built. Old Shade Street was maintained
as a street until the early 1960s when Route 2 was rebuilt and Hayden Avenue laid
out; the road, which had apparently never been paved, was then allowed to grow
over. The rezoning, in 1969, of the land along Hayden Avenue for offices and
research parks signaled the final demise of Old Shade Street: the old roadway, now
just a path, ends at the edge of the W.R. Grace property. Old Shade Street south
of Route 2, the former Cutler's Lane, is still a town street, however.
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Worthen, Edwin B. 1946. A Calendar History of Lexington, Massachusetts, 1620-1946,
pp. 20, 43-45. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Savings Bank.
1937 map
1955 map
1961 map
1969 map
2M-6/80